Results of The 35th
Bremen Six Day Race

14th to 19th January 1999

Risi /
Betschart notch up 23rd win

Teutenberg
hurt in crash

With a short track just 166 meters
in length, the Bremen Six always offers exciting racing. Last
year's winners Jens Veggerby and Jimmi Madsen won't be competing
as a team, as Jens is still out of action after injuring his
collar bone in a training accident during the summer. The big
favourites heading into this one were Etienne de Wilde and his
partner Andreas Kappes, who was born in Bremen and is five times
a winner in his home "six"- the two of them have also
won the last two six-day races, in Leipzig and Berlin.

However, the local win was not to
be. In the final madison of the night (one hour plus 50 laps),
four teams were in with a chance. By half way through the
madison, Risi and Betschart (who had the most points) were 2 laps
down on the race leaders. The Swiss "Alpine Express"
looked to be out of the reckoning but then, amazingly, Risi broke
free from the bunch with Etienne de Wilde glued to his wheel. The
two teams gained a lap, and then Risi attacked again immediately,
leaping out of the bunch to go for the infamous
"doublette", when a team takes two consecutive laps.
Nobody could respond, and that, gentle reader, is the story of
how Risi and Betschart won their 23rd six-day race.

During the course of the six
nights, 128,000 people paid good money to go and watch the racing
in Bremen. And just to show that the riders are appreciated,
Bruno Risi and his friend-since-childhood Kurt Betschart won a
special prize from Shell, their sponsors in this race: 50,000
litres of heating oil!

Germany's Lars Teutenberg suffered
a bad crash on the first night (Thursday) when his forks broke
after just 30 minutes of racing, pitching him head-first onto the
track. The 29-year old rider was taken to hospital with a bad
concussion, and his partner Andreas Beikirch decided not to
continue alone.

Friday night saw 23,000 spectators
paying hard cash to watch the Bremen 6 - and they reckon nobody's
interested in track racing! Incidentally, European readers with a
satellite dish should be able to catch the last hour of the race
live on the German N3 television channel on Tuesday Jan 19th.

Saturday evening's session saw
local hero Andreas
Kappes and Belgium's Etienne de Wilde
take the lead, but by Sunday evening (the Sunday session is held
during the afternoon) the Swiss "Alpine Express" of Risi and Betschart was back in front - although don't forget the bonus
laps that are awarded every time a team scores 100 points, and
Kappes / De Wilde have 292 points so will "gain" a
bonus lap with just 8 more points to take the overall race lead.

Meantime, Denmark's Jakob Piil, who only started racing again during the Berlin Six
after a few months out due to injuring a hip, decided he'd test
how resilient his body is and managed to inspect the track at
close quarters during a change with partner Frank Corvers. Jakob is apparently OK apart from a few bruises to his
body ... and his pride <g>. And despite "touching the
wood", Jakob and his Belgian partner are moving up the list,
raising to fifth place after the fourth day.

Incidentally, six-day races are
big events in Germany, and the Bremer Sechstagerennen
is no exception: In 1997, the racing attracted
125,500 spectators (130,000 in 1998 - click here for a report on the 1998 race) over the course of the six days - with over 20,000
spectators attending the Friday and Saturday evening sessions!
Three special trains were laid on to bring in 5,000 spectators
from Hamburg and Hanover, whilst 450 buses brought people from
all over Germany to watch, as well as from Holland, Belgium and
Denmark.

A 6 day bike race has commercial implications
for a city, too: The Bremen six-day race accounted for some 8,000
bed-nights in Bremen's hotels last year, and the catering
facilities at the track (31 drinks bars!) sold 300,000 glasses of
beer and 50,000 glasses of champagne. Seventeen oxen were roasted
during the event.

Do you have any
news about the Bremen Six? Drop an e-mail to if you do, or send him a fax at 0044 161 476
2914 - Fat Nick reads German, so grotty photocopies of
results sheets and local newspapers are gratefully
received!